Metta,
the first of the Buddha's Four Immeasurable Qualities, is a Pali word
generally translated as lovingkindness (or loving-kindness). Why isn't
it just love? What's kindness got to do with it?
We
tend to use the word "love" a lot. We love coffee, kittens, summer
days, dry white wine, walks on the beach at sunset, and "The Daily
Show." In the old but still relevant "Annie Hall," Woody Allen tells
Diane Keaton that he doesn't just love her, he "lurves" her to distinguish
his feelings from the generic
"love" we express toward those things we like.
Adding
the suffix "kindness" changes things in a fundamental way. Kindness is
not a word that we throw around lightly. We might use "nice" in its
place -- when someone brings us coffee or chocolate, you might say, "Oh,
that's so nice of you." And it is nice. But it's also kind. And because
kindness is a word that's not in our everyday vocabulary, throwing it
in stops our minds, which gives them time to undo the auto reply and
think about what we're saying.
My
first experience with metta was at a weekend retreat. In the traditional teachings, you practice metta by starting
with yourself and going through a succession of people ending with
everyone in the whole wide world (and beyond, if you think that way).
But
we started with someone dear to us,
someone we love, someone it's easy to send the wishes that they be
happy, safe, healthy, and live with ease. Then, we were told, to let our
sense or image of that person dissolve -- while keeping that loving
feeling -- and put ourselves in that place.
For
me, and many others in the room, the engine fell out of the metta
machine at that point and came to a dead stop. That lovin' feeling? Now
it's gone gone gone. Like many people, I was not raised with the idea
that I should love myself or be kind to myself. Much was expected of me,
and I expected even more. Kindness was not on the rubric.
For
me, one of the radical ideas of Buddhism is that I should love myself
as I love my (metaphorical) neighbor, that I was as deserving of
kindness as anyone else. That, in fact, if I cannot treat myself with
love and kindness, what I offer to others may appear to be
metta-phorical but, in fact, is meant to appease or win favor and is
based in fear or pity.
What
we call "love" is often attachment -- maybe, if you're close enough to
adolescence or adolescents, you've heard the phrase, "If you love chocolate so
much you should marry it." "I love coffee" means "I want coffee" and the
more of it the better.
Real
love, the kind meant by metta, isn't grasping; it's generous. Think of a
being you really love -- you want them to have the best, you give them
the corner piece of the cake with all the frosting, and you take a
center piece. You care for them.
Once
I was on retreat, and I was so tired that I couldn't handle the slow,
circular walking meditation; I felt like I would crash into a wall or
fall over. I left the room (which is how in it's done in this tradition)
and met the teacher coming down the hall. I told him how I felt and
said I was going to lie down on the couch in the common room and I was
really sorry, I knew I should be walking, but ... He cut me off. "That would be the kind thing to do,"
he said.
And the kind thing is always the loving thing. We just need to be reminded of that.
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